We’re digging RPGs

Know Thyself was my entry in the Game Chef 2007 competition. It got quite a bit of feedback — some position, some negative, all useful. I’ve playtested the Game Chef version twice, and got some really good stuff from that. The game was definitely not fully baked at that point, but some of the fun and emergent play from those playtests have encouraged me to keep going on the project.

Like this:

The concept of a fully-formed yet blank player character appeals to me for reasons I honestly cannot figure out. The act of wandering the halls in search of my memory is just thematically amazing; sort of like a hypnosis session as it would look if done on a VR setup. As a fanboy, I am totally looking forward to this game.

Just read through the game, and though I want to give myself some time to solidify my thoughts, I wanted to write down a few first impressions.

There are some board-game elements worked in, which I thought was pretty unique. The premise almost reminded me of the movie Cube.

You mentioned a desire to focus on expanding the PC vs PC conflict, and I think that’s a good direction to go. As written, it almost seems like the game would smoother with one GM and one player, but I think the possiblilities of drama that could arise from a group of strangers stuck in a situation like this is as interesting as discovering who you were.

I thought it might be kind of cool if the palace map was built up with tiles as you go, something almost like the game ‘ZOMBIES!!!’ This occured to me for a few reasons. One, it heightens the mystery of the palace if you can’t see where all the rooms are, two, it makes for a different layout every game you play, and three it makes the game easily expandable. You may even want to include a section on creating your own NPCs and rooms.

I’ll get back to this after I put some more thought into it. It seems like a really playable game in it’s current state however.

Meet the Miners

We are fledgling game designers, each working on a single new design in public (but really working on it in this group… but really working on it in public). The complete current drafts (or as complete as they stand) are in the Projects page. We also tell you what we’re about and how we do things around here on the Mission Statement page.

Master Mines Reservists
These are Master Mines members who have moved into the Publishing phase and are busy with that work or who are taking a break from designing or have bowed out for various reasons. However, these Reserve Miners remain close friends of the group. Reservists can be called in at any time to fight in case of an interstellar invasion by receiving the call: “Master Miners Mobilize!”